While "shrink-wrapped" big data analysis solutions offered by the likes of SAP and Oracle will "stimulate imaginations", they will soon give way to superior third-party products that display "greater levels of innovation", cloud infrastructure company Centiq has told Computing.

Bolt-on analysis deployments such as SAP's recently-launched Sentiment Intelligence module, which runs with the company's Rapid-Deployment Solution, are, says Centiq, useful for giving businesses an idea of the possibilities of deep data analysis, but will ultimately fade as "plausible third-party providers really grab peoples' interest" in the near future.

"These shrink-wrapped offerings are what's needed right now to stimulate imagination, especially for some of the less obvious solutions out there," said Gareth Pritchard, director of Centiq.

"I don't want this to sound too cynical, but ultimately SAP and Oracle are locked in the global battle of the database," said Glyn Heath, founder and director of Centiq.

"Getting footprint and stealing share from each other is the underlying game [for SAP and Oracle]. Prima, among others, is a very plausible third-party provider of the thing that's really going to grab people's interest; [tools that will help them] to use and unlock the data they've got.

"It's only a matter of time before smaller players come up with greater levels of innovation in the application end of the spectrum," added Heath.

"Our customers have said while it's great to get things up and running, the real value comes from continuing to manipulate [data] and tune it, and invest time there. It's important to keep the system constantly tuned with where the needs are going, and I don't think SAP or any of those guys are, right now, majoring on that."

Speaking to Computing about the launch of SAP's Sentiment Intelligence module, Stephen Birdsall, global senior vice president and general manager of Rapid Deployment Solutions at the company, said: "There's nobody else in the market that even comes close to us in terms of the assets and the packages that we have as part of our RDS group.

"When you combine in-memory tech from HANA with something like this, the type of information and the way you can drill in using Business Objects Explorer really brings all of this data to life and allows you to make real-time decisions."

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